


mile high club

by goldcarnations



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Airports, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Drabble, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Sex, Meet-Cute, Romance, possibly ooc because i haven't fully figured them out yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24907135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldcarnations/pseuds/goldcarnations
Summary: He’s staring at her over his glass, his eyes dragging across the creamy expanse of her thigh, then drifting, ghosting on her lips for a fraction of a second longer than a casual glance should last. When he finally meets her eyes his gaze is reluctantly fascinated. Oddlyconflicted.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Jeff Winger
Comments: 3
Kudos: 53





	mile high club

**Author's Note:**

> did someone say: shitty & quick drabble of jeff/annie airport bar AU where jeff has to grapple with their age difference but ultimately gives in because he's so charmed by annie's intensity??? because here i am
> 
> if you squint you'll find a reference to 2.08 - "you precocious little bitch!" is now my favorite thing that's ever been said on television.

Annie’s entire life kind of falls apart in the span of a week.

She loses her job on Friday and her boyfriend breaks up with her on Saturday, and by Sunday she falls into a deep, unrelenting pit of despair and hits rock bottom head-first. By Wednesday she’s already baked ten trays of brownies and her oven stops working on the eleventh, and with that she slip-slides deeper into the pit, sulkily buys three bottles of peppermint schnapps, and drowns her sorrows in two of them while window shopping online for yachts and diamond rings and everything else that’s been out of her reach ever since she cut herself off from her family.

On Thursday Annie finally wakes up. She washes her face and picks herself up to survey her pit of despair, and allows herself to fully accept how pathetic her one bedroom apartment is when it’s covered in dirty laundry and unwashed dishes. 

She needs a clean break.

With that realization and a decisive, renewed vigor, she starts putting her life back together. She picks up the trash in her room robotically and disinfects; she throws out all of her ex-boyfriend’s things in a large garbage bag. She brushes her hair for the first time in a week, and after further consideration and a forced recklessness, she cuts it into a slightly-uneven bob that barely touches her shoulders. But even after all the cleaning and makeovers she can still sense the ghost of her old habits prickling at her, goading, _taunting_ her, and clean breaks deserve new habits, so she heaves a sigh and opens up her laptop.

She looks up plane tickets.

There are several flights that leave tomorrow: _MILAN, ITL_ says the information of one of them in bolded sans serif. Annie’s heard good things about Milan. Museums, architecture, pasta. Italy’s supposed to be beautiful this time of year. She’s always wanted to visit.

She empties out her rainy-day savings fund. 

It’s not like it rains where she lives, anyway.

* * *

Her flight is delayed.

There’s only one thing to do in this airport when you’re pissed off about getting your flight delayed: it’s to get drunk. There’s someone already seated at closest the airport bar with the same idea, wearing a leather jacket, chelsea boots, and a conspicuously purposeful 5 o'clock shadow. The slope of his shoulders and the placement of his elbows on the counter suggest that he’s been sitting there for longer than she would even think to linger. 

Annie freezes to mull it over. The bartender sends her a quizzical stare as he sets down a glass in front of the man, who dips his chin briefly and takes a deliberate, weary sip. He’s not her type. She’s pretty sure that he’s not even in her age range, even.

But he looks like no strings attached. Stress relief. A nihilistic kind of pleasure. 

He looks like something else to do while waiting for her flight.

She can work with that.

Annie smoothes her hair behind her ears and pointedly sits on the stool next to him. Orders the fruitiest cocktail they’ve got on the menu. Preens when she doesn’t get carded. She lets her wrap skirt fall just a bit more open and crosses her legs toward him and sits straighter, arching only slightly, because she knows what she’s doing, because she wants to pick up some new habits but there are some parts that can readapt, readjust. She’s still figuring it out.

He’s staring at her over his glass, his eyes dragging across the creamy expanse of her thigh, then drifting, ghosting on her lips for a fraction of a second longer than a casual glance should last. When he finally meets her eyes his gaze is reluctantly fascinated. Oddly _conflicted._

“Hi,” he says to her.

She smiles back at him, shy at first, but she looks at him under her eyelashes when she remembers to be coy. “Hey.”

“I’m Jeff,” he says. “And you’re…?”

“Annie.”

He sighs into his drink. “Right.”

“Why? Is there a problem?”

He looks up briefly, like he’s considering what he’s about to say next or how he should rationalize, but the exasperated arch of his eyebrows when he looks back at her suggests that he hadn’t decided to consider whether she would like it.

“I was expecting the answer _underage_ ,” he says finally, “but I guess that fits too.”

Well.

Jeff's reaction affects her more than she wants to let on; Annie feels her mouth pucker and fights against it, breathing in sharply. “Are you insinuating that my name is— _juvenile_ , or something?”

He does a one shoulder shrug. It’s clearly more self-deprecating than it is directed at her, but it still stings. Ugh, she doesn't even know him, but the second cursory sweep of his eyes on her _irks_. It's appalling how strong her desire is to correct him.

Classic people-pleaser Annie. Even though she's supposed to be changing or growing up or something on this trip, she can't help it.

“I’m an adult,” she says, the pitch of her voice climbing.

His blue eyes turn sharp and sarcastic. “Right.”

“No, really, I—I can rent a car.”

“Congrats. Good for you.”

It bothersher how easily he responds, like he doesn’t care at all. Like he wouldn’t bat an eye if she just walked away. 

Annie eyes his drink again, amber and opaque, gleaming dimly at her. She already knows that she’ll hate the taste. But the way he’s rubbing the rim with his index finger feels like a dare.

With a single-minded urgency, she takes his cup and drinks it in one determined gulp. It’s an unforgiving, dry whiskey and burns the whole way down. His mouth twitches at her suppressed grimace with what looks like amusement and maybe even a grudging appreciation, though she could be imagining it.

“Careful,” Jeff says finally. “I don’t want to be the man taking advantage of the inebriated woman now, among other crimes.”

Insulted, she levels him with as intimidating of a gaze as she can muster.

“Okay, fine,” she says. “ _Sure_. Is that really what I look like to you? Some misguided little baby lamb that doesn’t know any better?”

“Baby lamb? Maybe. Misguided?” He trails off with a knowing look.

Her cheeks flare, hot and probably extremely red. “Well, I’m not. Any of those things, that is.”

He regards her sagely, warily. He’s humoring her, but there’s a glint in his eyes that could convince her otherwise. “So what do you think you are?”

She straightens.

“I’m goal oriented.”

“Okay."

“ _Responsible_.”

“Sure.”

“Possibly a little intense.”

This draws out a scoff. “Oh, really?”

Annie stiffens. “But I’ve been told that I’m…precocious.”

“Precocious?” Jeff raises his eyebrows. “Interesting choice of words.”

Annie huffs.

“Listen, okay, you don't know me, or—or why I'm here," she says scornfully, finding it increasingly difficult to keep her haughty tone. “I used to plan every single part about my life. I had two planners and a whole color coded _system_. Do you know when—” she searches for the words, “your life just—revolves around something? You sort of lose all the meaning in the cracks? In the name, of like, security, or just a feeling of _fulfillment_ maybe. Like, right now I’m not screwing it up.”

Annie pauses and Jeff's eyes are bright on hers, focused and expectant. She’s been rambling, has all but stopped trying to defend herself, but his gaze has never once left hers. It’s oddly validating and feels— _personal_.

A thrill goes through her.

“Anyway,” she hurries, “I’m here after a series of disasters—or, wake up calls, I suppose—and I impulse bought a one-way ticket to Milan, Italy yesterday. And I have approximately four outfits in my bag and my life’s savings in my purse and my _god_ ,” she exhales hard here, sets down his glass with a watery clink, and laughs with a frankly terrifying mania, “I’m just looking to change things. Shake things up a bit. I feel like my life is— _I_ am—in a rut. Or a sinking ship.” She breathes out again here, unsteady, self-conscious. “Both feel apt.”

His eyes narrow briefly, pensive, before adding slowly, “So you’re going to Milan."

“ _So_ ,” she replies, setting her jaw, “I’m setting some new goals. Trying new things.” 

Jeff examines her for just a bit longer; a heavy, intentional pause. 

Annie stares back.

He knits his eyebrows.

She sucks in her lower lip.

Then he tilts his head and the smile spreading across his face is affable and charming and makes him look ten years younger and also, somehow, exactly the same.

“I didn’t ask before, but I have to know,” he says. “What do I seem like to you?”

The question catches her off guard. She thinks it over. 

She goes with the truth.

"You seem like a bad decision.”

Jeff's mouth shifts wider into a cunning smirk, but the crinkles around his eyes are still there.

“Ah ah, I think the word you’re looking for is _distraction_.”

“Actually,” Annie corrects, “the word I was looking for was _detour_.”

From the way his mouth curves upward, she’s pretty confident that he likes the sound of that too.

* * *

The airport bathrooms turn out to be cleaner than expected.

Jeff does this quick double knot to tie up the condom once he’s about to throw it away. It’s thorough, precise, practiced. Full of intent. Not unlike the way he’d fucked her against the bathroom stall. 

She’s already starting to become attached to it. To _him_.

New habits. 

They’re not so hard to pick up.

“My flight leaves in a couple hours,” Annie tells him, bending to pull up her underwear from around her ankles. Then—she tries not to let on just how nervous she is—she ventures, “Do you know any Italian?”

Jeff pauses for a brief moment, his gaze flicking over her from her crooked skirt to the bra still hanging off one of her shoulders. It's nerve-wracking to watch him study her like this; she feels extraordinarily naked in front of him, even plaintive, a person trying to be brand new. Figuring it out. Wiping the slate clean.

Then his mouth tilts upward and she can breathe again.

“No,” he says, “but I could stand to learn some.”

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr/shithole/etc](https://shakespeareans.co.vu/)


End file.
